One time was in John 2. He had just made a whip out of cords (a slow and tedious process, by the way) and cleaned out the temple of the religious merchants who were taking advantage of the worshipers.
"The Jews" (the religious authority figures) were demanding to know his authority for such a disruptive action; they asked for a sign to demonstrate that authority.
"Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days," he replied [John 2:19]
That's kind of a pretty black-and-white statement, isn't it. There's nothing in the context to give away that this needed to be interpreted metaphorically, though Scripture tells us that detail [2:21].
Now let's be honest, this particular group of people were not experiencing a teachable moment. Rather, this was one of those times that they were not particularly disposed to hearing the truth from him. These people were apparently so committed to their authority (and to their profits) that they were unwilling to hear the truth. So he hides it in metaphor, but he doesn't tell the unteachable ones that he's hiding truth from them.
Another situation was in John 6, where he was trying to speak truth about spiritual matters to people who had just had one free lunch and were looking for another. These guys were asking for a sign, too (v30), though they were not very subtle about the fact that they really wanted the free lunch (v31), and Jesus knew it (v26).
In all fairness, he spent quite a lot of energy (v35 - 51) trying to communicate actual truth with them. It seems to always happen: when their source of free food made it clear that there will not be any free food today, they turned on him (v51), and so he does it again: he speaks truth in metaphor, but doesn't tell them that it's a metaphor. (If you pay attention, you can maybe see this happening in our Federal government these days, too.)
"Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." [John 6:53, and repeatedly through v58].
From the hindsight of the New Covenant and the Last Supper [See Luke 22], we know that he's talking about eating the bread and drinking the cup of the New Covenant; people who do not join with Him in the New Covenant don't have life in them. But they thought he was talking about literal cannibalism, and they had every reason to think that.
But being honest again, this group of people had resisted Jesus' best attempts at making this a teachable moment. These folks had committed themselves inflexibly to one view of Jesus. So again, he hides the truth in metaphor, but he doesn't tell the unteachable ones that he's hiding it from them.
And this is the point where that gets more than usually uncomfortable for me. I've been a rather un-gracious proponent of Biblical Literalism in various points in my history: Interpret it all literally unless it says not to. In fairness, I was reacting to a movement that had explained away all of the supernatural events in the Bible by calling them metaphors for spiritual reality. I didn't like that. (But over-reacting is seldom a successful response.)
And then I realized that Jesus is still in the business of hiding truth in plain sight. From time to time, he still hides the truth in metaphorical (or "apocalyptic" or even "prophetic") language. And he still doesn't tell us that he's doing that.
There are still believers for whom truth is hidden. There are some people who are so committed to their power, their position and their paycheck that despite their words, they don't really want the truth; it might threaten all that. And there are some believers who are so convinced that their view is the right view, so they shut down any truth that challenges that.
Some of these are Christian leaders, and I'm guessing that we could all point to some (but let's not, OK?). And scads of them write books and promote their views on social media, and I'm pretty sure we've all run into some of them.
But the bigger lesson is not for "them." It's for "me" and for "us." Not a one of us is immune from these truth-blinding errors. I guess we need to read the Bible for ourselves and let both Holy Spirit and our brothers & sisters help us see the truth that Jesus has hidden where we least expect it.
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